Christopher Walken: "Don't call me a senior citizen yet!"

Christopher Walken, 69, has admitted he finds ageing problematic. He complains in an interview with 'The Independent' that he recently went to the cinema and was given a senior citizen discount without asking for it. "That hadn't really happened before. They'll ask you sometimes but she gave it to me automatically and I thought that's it, it's over."

In fact Walken who has five new films due to be released, including 'A Late Quartet', where he play a musician who discovers he has Parkinson's disease, says he is relishing a change of role in his seventh decade.

For years he's played monsters and psychopaths, but now "as I get older it's nice to play uncles, fathers and grandfathers".

He says veteran British actor John Gielgud, who carried on working into his 90s, is his role model. "I want to be really old and making a movie. "

He's started taking care of himself. "I have a great constitution and I've taken a lot of beatings and you have to make sure you drink your orange juice and get enough sleep.

He runs on a treadmill every day to protect a bad back. As a teenager he trained as a dancer in New York - and his career has included memorable dance moves from 'Pennies From Heaven' and 'Hairspray' to the 2001 video for Fat Boy Slim's 'Weapons of Choice' directed by Spike Jonze.

'A Late Quartet' is on general release.